


Raw

by ungoodpirate



Series: Putting The Puzzle Back Together [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, Hiatus fic, M/M, Post-The Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:11:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ungoodpirate/pseuds/ungoodpirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I wish I could give you some perspective changing advice that would save you from all this pain, Kurt, but heartbreak is just something you have to ride out.”</p>
<p>Thanksgiving Day doesn’t go well for anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raw

Thanksgiving Day: Westerville

“I can’t believe this. Why did this have to happen today?”

Blaine tucked his chin to his chest and just mumbled, “It’s not like I did it on purpose.” 

His mother sighed. “I know, Blaine, I know. I’m just… stressed.” She glanced at the silver watch on her wrist. It was hopeless, them getting back in time for a smooth Thanksgiving meal. It was the emergency room, after all, and they were lucky in one hour they had been in the E.R. that they had made it through triage and into a room. 

Blaine carefully cradled his left hand with his right. His ring finger was at an odd angle starting at the knuckle, swollen, and immovable. 

His mother was tapped her toes anxiously, and Blaine wondered if she really realized it, how much she wanted this to finish and wrap up. After having two much bigger medical emergencies in his young life already, a messed up finger, caused accidentally rather than directed harm, must’ve seemed so inconsequential. 

She was dressed and dolled up finely. She was supposed to be playing hostess today, but had to abandon her food half-finished – she only cooked on special occasions – when he had come to her for help. If he had thought himself able to drive himself to the hospital through the pain and mostly unusable hand, he probably would have. He could’ve called her from the hospital and told her why he was late for dinner when she thought he was up in his room.

Five minutes later, the doctor appeared, a younger women with small spectacles set on the very tip of her nose. 

“Hello, I’m Dr. Thompson. What’s the problem here?” she said as she flipped through the chart that had been left in a plastic holder on the door.

Blaine’s mother just waved a hand in Blaine’s direction. “Him.”

The doctor pulled up a chair and sat across from Blaine, gently cradling his hand and examining it turning his wrist this way and that. 

“Ma’am,” she said, addressing his mother, “Do you mind stepping out of the room for a few minutes. I would like to talk to Blaine.”

“Fine, I’ll just… call the house.”

“Is she always that intimidating,” Dr. Thompson asked once Blaine’s mother was gone.

Blaine cracked a half- smile. “Yes.”

“Do you mind telling me how you got this?” she asked.

“Punching bag,” Blaine said. 

“Were you wearing gloves?”

“Yes.”

“Are you lying?”

Blaine remembered him seeking out the punching bag his father had installed in the basement after Blaine incident at the Sadie Hawkins dance. That’s how his parents referred to it if they ever had to, incident. He needed to fucking feel: the ache in his muscles, the pain in his joints, anything and everything. Otherwise, he only had the raw guilt in his gut and his twisting, pinching heart that felt sick. Everything else was numb. He found no joy or passion or humor or even anger in anything else. So he punched, faster and harder, and it wasn’t enough. He tore off his gloves and kept going. He must have thrown a sloppy fist – it was all a haze of speed and need – because then something felt wrong. 

At least it was, as he wanted, something to feel.

“Yes,” Blaine said. 

Dr. Thompson tried to give him a teacher-like look of scolding, but she couldn’t maintain it. “I’m going to have to ask for you to stop doing that.”

Blaine nodded. Then he said, without prompting, “It’s kind of my stress reliever, boxing. I’ve been... dealing with a really bad break up.” He didn’t know why he said it. This was a practical stranger. But who else was he going to talk to… his parents? That was a joke.

Dr. Thompson made a sympathetic noise. “Well, I wouldn’t worry too much, honey. One, this looks like a dislocation, which is better than a fracture, but we’ll need x-rays to make sure. Second, you’re a good looking young man. I’ll bet you get a new girlfriend in no time.”

If she had been looking up at him, she would have seen his face. As it was, he didn’t bother to correct her. 

.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Thanksgiving Day: Lima

Burt found Kurt sitting in the stairwell, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve… which was very un-Kurt of him.

“Geez, you okay, kid?”

Kurt startled at the sound of Burt’s voice, but he didn’t bolt. Burt took that as a sign to squeeze onto the step next to him. 

“I’m fine,” Kurt said, diverting his hands to tug at the knees of his pants. “I’m fine.” This was counteracted by Kurt blinking and a tear escaping from the corner of his eye. 

“Yeah,” Burt said. “Real fine.”

Kurt snorted. It wasn’t pretty, but sometimes it was nice, getting down to the raw moments with his son, the perfectionist fashionista. It made it hard, sometimes, under the act, to get the truth of what he was feeling. 

“It’s stupid,” Kurt said after a moment of quiet. He huffed. “So stupid.”

“I’ve learned quite a few things in my life, Kurt, and one of them is that if it’s worth crying over, it ain’t stupid.”

Kurt shifted his feet on the carpeted stare then glanced sideways at his dad. “I miss him.”

Really, Burt figured it would be something like that. Kurt had told Burt over the phone of his break up with Blaine and the reason why. Burt had to admit, he was in a protective-father rage for about a half an hour after that, before he calmed himself and resigned to the fact that this wasn’t something he could protect his son from and it never was. It wasn’t a bully or a threat or a homophobic asshole or even an unfair school. Kurt had been hurt by someone he loved and by someone who loved him. 

But Kurt hadn’t cried to him or ranted to him. Kurt had informed Burt, and miles and miles away, Burt didn’t really have much he could over the phone if Kurt didn’t want to rely on him. He was ready now, though. 

“Everyone around the table was saying what they were thankful for, as cheesy as that is, and it wasn’t any particular thing that triggered it… it just,” Kurt paused as if to emphasis the importance of the next words, “He was one of the things in my life I was most thankful for, if not the most. And now he’s gone. And it’s all ruined.”

Kurt dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, and Burt suspected it was an attempt to keep himself from crying anymore. 

Burt latched a warm arm around Kurt’s shoulders. “I wish I could give you some perspective changing advice that would save you from all this pain, Kurt, but heartbreak is just something you have to ride out.”

Kurt choked over a sob and curled in towards his father. Burt couldn’t do much, but he could do this. 

.-.-.-.-.-.-.

The Day Before Thanksgiving

Kurt cradled his iPhone between his ear and shoulder, one arm busy as it was ringed around a grocery bag, the other pulling open a door. He slid inside the warm building while chatting.

“I can’t today, Rachel, I’m helping Carol get ready for Thanksgiving dinner… You need at least one prep day for a proper feast… Yeah, I’m just at the Lima Bean right now for a fix before going home. They can’t make a nonfat mocha like this in New York… What do you mean I need to acquire a taste for New Yorker coffee?... Rachel, that doesn’t even make sense.” 

He got to the front of the queue and gave an apologetic look to the barista as Rachel was gabbing away into his one ear. 

“Rachel, I’ve got to go. Okay? Thank you… Sorry,” Kurt said, “Grande nonfat mocha, please,” he said, digging out his wallet and passing over his money. He put an extra dollar in the tip jar, not forgetting his tenor working at the Lima Bean either. 

A few minutes later, his drink was handed over. He started his way out, turning around toward the door, and there was Blaine, coming in. And they were right there, the two of them, a few feet apart, unavoidable. 

“Hi,” Kurt said, because they had seen each other – Blaine had this expression on his face – and just walking by… that seemed cruel, and just plain rude on top of it. 

“Hi,” Blaine said, and it was breathy. He had just come in the door, the tip of his nose and his ears pink. “I can just—” He motioned towards the door. 

“You don’t have to leave. I’m running anyway… and even if I wasn’t, it’s not like only one of us can be in here at a time,” Kurt said. He hadn’t taken a sip of his mocha yet, but the heat of it through the paper cup felt scalding in his hand, and the groceries, heavier in his arm. 

“Okay, I’ll just,” he ducked away and into the line for the counter. 

Less than ten words, that was what Blaine had said to him. Two sentences he couldn’t properly finish. It’s not like Kurt had said something of anymore use to him. They spoke more deeply and honestly the day they had met, strangers still.

Kurt pushed through the door back onto the sidewalk, sparing a glance as he did so, of Blaine in line, wrapped in a coat and heavy scarf. He didn’t know that a few seconds later, Blaine was the one looking over his shoulder to watch him through the glass, walking away, once again.

**Author's Note:**

> I struggled with this part because it's not a big moment in their journey, but after rethinking and writing and cutting, this is what I developed. I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
